Company History

“GOLD!”“GOLD!” “GOLD!” “GOLD!” “GOLD!”

The cry of “Gold” first resounded in the Coeur d'Alene
Mountains of Northern Idaho in the early 1880's and in a matter of
weeks claims were spotting the area and mining camps with names like
Eagle City, Murray and Pritchard were booming. It was then that
James R. Marks and Billy Hart felt there was a better way of making a
living than grubbing for gold in their placer diggings up Buckskin
Gulch. In 1884 on a little Clapboard building in Murray they
hung a sign - “J.R. Marks and Co.” which became the
area’s first mine supply house selling retail hardware and
metals (copper, tin and sheet ironware) to the miners and
prospectors. The ensuing years saw all the events common to mining
districts: romance, heartaches, labor disputes, recessions,
booms, fortunes made and fortunes lost. The cast included many
famous names: Calamity Jane, Clarence Darrow, “Big Bill”
Haywood, Eugene Debs, Wyatt Earp and Harry Orchard, to name a few.

While exhausting the gold, vast deposits of silver, lead and zinc
were uncovered. Mining camps died and were replaced by
others. The lone miner gave way to large, well-capitalized,
underground mining operations as the world famous Coeur d’Alene
Mining District came into being.

Our Company kept pace with the times. At one point prior to
1890 we had stores in five camps within the Coeur d’Alene
Mining District. Our headquarters moved with the markets we
served. From Murray we moved headquarters to Wallace, Idaho,
heart of the “Silver Valley”, then to Spokane in 1889,
helping rebuild the city after the great fire, and then back to
Wallace in 1892 after their great fire. Eventually, we grew and
expanded a metal service and processing center, a hardware
wholesaler, and we became a world-renowned mining equipment
manufacturer. We added a foundry in 1913 for mining and mill
castings and finally, in 1966, when our market base expanded to serve
other industries as customers, we moved back to Spokane,
Washington. We now have grown to be among the largest single
building metal service centers between Minneapolis and Seattle.
The last move to Spokane allowed us to become a bridge builder.
The largest (3,000 tons) was the AISI prize winning, “Most
Beautiful Long Span”, the KOOCANUSA Bridge across the Libby
Reservoir completed in 1971. Our last bridge across Dworshak
Reservoir, on the Clearwater was completed in 1972. We now have
grown to be among the largest single building metal service centers
between Minneapolis and Seattle and there is still more to come, stay
tuned.

From the beginning we went through several name changes: J. R. Marks
and Company, Holley Mason & Marks, The Coeur d’Alene
Hardware Co., The Coeur d’Alene Hardware and Foundry Co.
And finally in 1960 “The Coeur d’Alenes
Company” with remembrance of the “Coeur d’Alenes
Mountains” and in fitting memory with gratitude of the Indians,
French trappers, prospectors, miners, owners and mine companies that
made the name famous. In 2001 we added our present doing
business label to cover the Company’s inclusion of Aluminum to
the Tin, Copper, Sheet-Ironware (steel) we started with in 1884 along
with the processing expertise added in the intervening 117
years. Now 129 years later we are well into the second quarter
of our second century of business in the Metals Industry.